Who are your favorite Keener Rock and Roll secret side men? Acts like Glenn Campbell and Leon Russell labored on other people’s hits before coming into their own. In fact, many of the great acts that charted on the WKNR Music Guide benefited from some legendary side-men. The Wrecking Crew reminded me today about Louie Shelton, the axe ace who added class to a ton of hit records, including the Jackson 5’s  “ABC” and “I Want You Back”, Seals & Croft’s “Summer Breeze” and “Low Down” by Boz Scaggs. And that’s Louis played those amazing Latin guitar licks on the Monkee’s “Valerie” as heard on Keener in March of 1968. Boyce and Hart wrote it and Davy does a pretty good job on the vocals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJw0qpqIONQ

In 1967, Arlo Guthrie released his debut album. The 18 minute cut on side one told the story of Arlo’s adventures one Thanksgiving in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Alice’s Restaurant became a counter culture anthem that launched the son of the legendary Woodie Guthrie to the upper echelons of 60s rock and roll culture. The 1969 Arthur Penn film cemented to story into our consciousness.

Arlo’s other notable film appearance came in 1970, documenting his performance at Woodstock during the summer of 1969. But he would only chart on the Top 40 with a Steve Goodman penned tale about riding the rails on the famous Illinois Central’s City of New Orleans. That album was Hobo’s Lullaby, a collection on the Warner Reprise label that made it’s debut right around the time that WKNR faded into history.

Every Thanksgiving, those of us who still own the LP dig it out of the closet, dust it off, pop it on the turntable and head back to a time when being a litter bug could get you into real trouble.

On November 20, 2004 Keener13.com presented a podcast detailing the Assassination of John F. Kennedy, how radio covered the news and how the brand new WKNR became an all-news station during that staggering moment in American History.

We begin with a rare logger tape from KLIF in Dallas. Keener fan and Kennedy scholar Jim Feliciano connected us with this one-of-a-kind historical record. Rex Jones, Gary DeLaune, Joe Long and Gordon McLendon (yep, that Gordon McLendon – one of the fathers of Top 40 radio) described the rapidly unfolding events. Then we fast-forward one year later to the WKNR documentary about that day, produced by Bob Green and Philip Nye (seen at left interviewing Michigan Governor George Romney) for WKNR News. It is said that television news came of age on that day, 41 years ago. But for many,  radio was still a trusted source of timely, if not always accurate information. For those who depended on their radios during Hurricane Sandy, that’s still very much the case.

Listen to the program. 31 Minutes 11.1MB MP3

As the 60s crossed into the 70s, the Motor City 5 defined fire breathing, flame throwing rock and roll in Detroit. With Fred “Sonic” Smith and Wayne Kramer on the axes, Michael Davis on base, Dennis Thompson at the drums and the megawatt voice of singer Rob Tyner at the microphone, the band was the essence of proto-punk, rattling the rafters at the Grande and pushing the edge of the envelope everywhere they went.

Such was their magnetism that they took over the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in January of 1969, even before the release of their debut album. In the magazine’s profile of the band, Eric Ehrmann, then a student at Miami of Ohio, called them “the next rock and roll superheroes“, the act that would symbolize the migration of musical revolution from San Francisco to Detroit. To hear the MC5 in live performance was like touching a raw nerve with a cattle prod. Rock journalist Robert Bixby famously called it “a catastrophic force of nature the band was barely able to control.”

For those of us who grew up in Ann Arbor during the 5’s reign, the fact that you had to be 18 to buy their album at Jeep Holland‘s Discount records made them all the more alluring. Every Ann Arbor garage band had at least one MC5 song in our repertoire and we all dared one another to launch our version of “Kick Out The Jams” with Rob’s signature introduction.

Then as now, rock and roll was a dangerous profession. Today, only Thompson and Kramer survive. But thanks to YouTube and MP3s, the MC5 experience is just as visceral and earthshaking today as it was during their brief prime. As Blade Runner character Eldon Tyrell might have said. “The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long – and you have burned so very, very brightly.”